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Smart Writing

Reasoning from cause is very common and we are all familiar with it, if only in a common-sense way. If someone asks you 'Why did you buy this book ', you might reply 'because it was reasonably cheap and looked interesting' alternatively you might say 'because someone recommended that I buy it' or even 'because it was a compulsory textbook for my studies'. In all cases, you have stated what event or fact caused you to buy this book. Hence, in a causal relationship between claims, the premise or...

We also know that claims always imply or state their scope and certainty and attention to this point will permit us to avoid one of the great errors in reasoning the sweeping generalisation. Often people will make a conclusion that is far too general, or definitive for the reasons they are presenting to support it. An example would be 'Australia has a good education system with strong programs to teach literacy, and thus all Australians know how to read and write.' It is true that Australia has...

A reason for a conclusion is very unlikely to consist in a single claim. No matter how we might state it in short-hand, it is, analytically, a complex interaction of many ideas and implications. The reason must be broken down into a chain of more precise premises. For example, the claim that 'university education should be free for all Australians' might be supported by the reason that 'the economy benefits from a well-educated Australian population'. But is our analysis of the situation...

In the following complex argument, identify how the wording of the claims helps you to see the logic of the five arrows which represent the movement from premise to conclusion. 1. Ian should be jailed for between three and six months for assaulting Michael. 2. Ian threatened to attack Michael. 3. By law, threatening to attack someone is known as 'assault'. 5. A recent survey of 200 assault victims found that, for over 150 of them, the assault adversely affected their lives for between three and...

Finding information effectively is, in large measure, a matter of understanding how that information or knowledge is to be used in your own arguments and explanations. Often we simply want some basic descriptive information to serve as claims in our reasoning without wanting to provide extensive supporting arguments. For instance, we read, in relation to our nationalistic advertisements investigation, that Crocodile Dundee was one of the most popular films ever screened in Australia. We can...

Doyal, Len and Harris, Ken, Empiricism, Explanation and Rationality in the Social Sciences, Roudedge and Kegan Paul, London, 1986. A very comprehensive treatment of the topic. The authors' main argument is that naive empiricism (that is, the belief that facts are facts and we find them) is wrong because all 'facts' are interpretive claims based in political and or social circumstances. Gaarder, Jostein, Sophie's World A Novel about the History of Philosophy, Phoenix House, London, 1995. A story...

To get the most out of this book, you will need to read it carefully chapter by chapter. The book builds sequentially, so that many of the ideas and concepts introduced in earlier chapters underpin more complex discussion of related issues in subsequent chapters. Also, as you go, you should do the exercises in each chapter. Do not check the answers until you have completed all of a particular exercise and are satisfied with them. When you turn to the Answers, Discussion, and Further Advice, you...

As we know, claims are complex statements that tie together all sorts of information about ideas, scope, certainty, values, and so on. As a result, any reasoning to support or explain a claim (the conclusion) must attend to each aspect of that claim. For example, if we wanted to explain why 'Most people do not understand that late capitalism will never sustain unemployment levels lower than 5 per cent', then there are many aspects of the claim that need explanation. At the very least, our...

ANSWERS, DISCUSSION, AND FURTHER ADVICE 157 It would be incorrect to diagram their relationship thus Claims 2 and 3 are related and, indeed, are dependent on one another (see chapter 4). It is wrong to use the -1 symbol for any form of relationship between claims other than for the logical relationship 'because therefore'. Instead the + symbol should have been used to join claims 2 and 3 on the same line. Other incorrect uses of the diagram tend to reflect a misunderstanding of the fact that,...

There are times when people make the mistake of circular reasoning, that is, they provide a premise or premises that are, effectively, the same as the conclusion. A very obvious example is 'I have failed my exams because I have failed my exams'. No one is foolish enough to actually use such an example. However, we can use different words to say the same thing. Hence, sometimes, people argue in ways that are circular because they present as their conclusion a claim that is the same, logically,...

Although, in practice, reasoning, knowledge, research, and analysis are all inextricably bound together, it is also true that, from time to time, we divide our reasoning tasks up in a way that allows us to sit down and prepare an analytical text containing arguments and explanations. What we have learnt about reasoning so far makes us much more effective in such preparation, and this chapter briefly discusses two ways in which we can go about it. However, always remember that the key to good...

The study and teaching of critical thinking (also known as informal logic) is relatively rare in Australia. There is little to guide the keen student or teacher in the development of skills for analysis and reasoning in everyday work and study The orientation of most of the available books on this subject is more traditionally logical, and this orientation further complicates the process of teaching and learning applied critical thinking skills, since it tends to remove the use of reasoning and...

I have been fortunate enough to find that I was right to assume that a practical book on critical thinking skills set in the context of communication would be both popular and necessary. I continue to be involved in teaching critical thinking in the unit Applied Reasoning, which is now a part of some courses of study through Open Learning Australia (REAl 1 visit http www.ola.edu.au), and is being revived on campus at Curtin University. I have also realised that, in writing Smart Thinking, I...

An analogy is a special form of reasoning, which has some similarities with reasoning from specific cases. Reasoning by analogy involves drawing an equally specific conclusion from specific premises via a comparison of like aspects. Good analogies avoid comparisons between items that have too many dissimilarities. For example Imagine a friend gave you a guinea pig to look after but forgot to tell you anything about what to feed it. You might say to yourself, 'I have a guinea pig and do not know...

Where do these generalisations come from Do we just make them up No, in most cases they have been established via reasoning in this instance, from specific cases to a generalisation. The difference in reasoning from specific cases is that, although a general statement is involved, it is not used as a premise but as the conclusion. We routinely find such reasoning in, for example, opinion polls, statistical analyses, or any other surveys in which the reasoning supports conclusions that...

The final type of reasoning is less common but equally important. Some claims, as we have seen, establish the definition of a particular word or phrase. Often we need to give reasons for our definitions, either because there is some widespread doubt about them or because we are trying to establish a particular meaning in a given context. Here is an example In a true democracy, all power rests with the people constitutionally speaking, in a monarchy some power theoretically resides with the...

We might, for example, discover that there has been a 100 per cent increase in Internet use in Australia in the past two years. We can immediately begin to think about the following was this increase the same, or more or less in previous years Have there been similar rises in other countries recently Again, in a more complex example, we read that Australia was one of the countries that most quickly (in terms of time and number of users) adopted video recorders and mobile phones when they were...

Here is a simple example of relevance and irrelevance concerning the conclusion 'Smith is physically unhealthy' a. Smith has pains in his chest he coughs a lot and is short of breath walking up stairs. Clearly Smith is physically unhealthy. b. Smith wears green trousers and a pink hat and has no shirt on. Clearly Smith is physically unhealthy. In argument a, the relevance of the premises is clear they all report physical symptoms that are routinely recognised as evidence of poor health. In the...

Advice on research usually covers 'physical' issues such as finding books, conducting experiments, and searching computer databases. Such advice does not, however, address the key point that, since knowledge and reasoning are intimately connected, then searching for knowledge is a part of reasoning. The common thread between research and reasoning is that they both involve analysis the thinking through of the connections between claims (or information). If we cannot consciously control our...

Answer briefly the following questions, giving, where possible, an example in your answer that is different from those used in this book a. Why are well-formed claims essential b. What is the role of connotations in thinking about well-formed claims c. What is the difference between claiming 'X happened' and 'Jones has argued that X happened' d. What roles do scope and certainty play in well-formed claims e. Which claims are least likely to be 'self-evident' f. What is the similarity between...

By comparing items and drawing conclusions based on their similarities. (See pp 99-100.) How do I avoid making assumptions in my essays, presentations, and reports Do not take the truth of a claim or its relationship with other claims for granted stop and think about what your audiences expect you to do and what they already know. (See pp 7, 11-12, 73-4, 122-7.) How can I begin to understand the audiences of my arguments and explanations Regard your audiences as having certain expectations...

Chapter 3 introduced the idea of a particular planning method, which revolves around the use of the analytical structure format. Here, as a reminder, are the five steps involved in this method 1 Decide what your conclusion will be. Write this claim out carefully, expressing exactly what you mean. Number it '1'. 2 Then think about the reasons that you are giving for this conclusion. These reasons must be written as proper claims, this time serving as premises that either explain how that...

One of the problems that confronts teachers of first-year university units each semester is the need to ensure that students learn, quickly, the methods and skills of correct referencing. In some courses, students are very much left to fend for themselves, relying on, perhaps, the services of the university library, advice offered by individual staff members, or simply muddling through on the basis of critical feedback on their first assignments. The Department of Media and Information (DMI),...

We have now finished with our detailed look at the analytical structure approach. This chapter will consider, in a more general way, how to think about the types of reasoning we might use and encounter. I already noted, in chapter 2, that basically reasoning is either about relationships across time (cause and effect), or within the sets or groups into which we divide and classify objects at any given moment. But there are some other ways of thinking about reasoning that are worth exploring in...

Writing well-formed and well-founded claims is only half the task of effective reasoning. The links between these claims must also be well made if our overall argument or explanation is to be strong. Looking carefully at the links between premises prevents us from making unconscious assumptions about how information is interrelated. We must also check the connections of our premises with their conclusion, making sure they are relevant and provide strong support. Otherwise our conclusion will...

This chapter begins our in-depth exploration of how to use reasoning more effectively in order to make us smart thinkers. As suggested in chapter 1, learning to use reasoning better requires that we be more aware of what we are already doing. We need to learn some basic terms and concepts with which to talk and think about reasoning. The aim of this chapter is to improve our awareness of how we are actually doing reasoning. The focus in this chapter is on claims. In the next chapter we look at...

These 'key terms' summarise and draw together various points and concepts discussed in the text. Each includes a reference to the chapter in which they are first discussed many are generally applicable throughout the book. The conclusion is established by comparing similarities between like objects in the premises. The key questions to ask are about the similarities and differences between the known case and the case under discussion. (See chapter 7.) The process of thinking through the...

Smart thinking requires, first of all, that our claims be well formed. Before we even think about how the links between claims might develop and before we even consider whether or not our claims are acceptable we need to write or speak clear claims. While this task is similar to all clear writing or speaking, it is not exactly the same. Some of the rules of narrative exposition such as not repeating words too frequently, the proper use of clauses within sentences, and so on do not apply at this...

Linking claims involves two distinct processes, as signalled by the and I symbols used in analytical structure diagrams. The first process involves connections between premises and other premises the second between premises and a conclusion. We must explore these links in more detail in order to understand, first, the analysis that lies behind such connections and, second, how to represent them accurately in the analytical structure format. Of course, in practice, the process of representation...

Claims are the basic material of reasoning, but they must be linked together if we are to argue and explain our points of view. We have already seen that claims that are linked to a conclusion by supporting it or explaining it are called premises. A conclusion, therefore, is a claim that is supported or explained. In this chapter we investigate this linking process in more detail. My principal goal, again, is to give you greater awareness of how you reason, in order to improve what you actually...

There is an inner logic, and we're taught to stay far from it It is simple and elegant, but it's cruel and antithetic And there's no effort to reveal it There are many words associated with what is, loosely, termed 'thinking'. We are often told to 'think about the issues', to 'analyse in more depth', to 'use reasoning', or to 'be rational'. Sometimes perhaps with reference to computers, or to the legendary Star Trek character Mr Sp ck we are told to 'be logical'. Often students are told that...